Protecting Your Business with a Firewall

It’s common knowledge in today’s business world that having firewall protection is a necessary element of your businesses’ IT design and infrastructure. But, should use a hardware firewall, software firewall or both as part of your company’s computer security plan?

Both types of firewalls prevent hackers from intercepting private data, implanting Trojans and infecting your network. Yet, each of them works in an entirely different way.

Software firewalls are installed individually on each employee’s computer and require each employee to make their own decisions about what they will or will not allow through the firewall program. Users without a lot of technical experience are often unsure about the best security decisions to make.

Hardware firewalls, however, protect all the computers on your entire network. You can support the setting in a centralized way, allowing your IT department to set all the firewall settings, rules and permissions. A hardware firewall, combined with a solid antivirus and anti-spyware program, as well as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) set-up would be the ideal combination for your business. Leaving security decisions in the hands of a few IT professionals, and easily updating your settings from the network, make a hardware firewall an ideal choice for business security.

So, your company has decided to use a hardware firewall. Let’s explore some of the best practices for protecting your business with your new firewall.

By default deny all traffic, enabling only those ports and services that are needed.
Disable any services and software on the firewall itself, that aren’t needed.
Change the firewall administrator password before connecting it to the Internet.
Protect physical access to your firewall from anyone that is not responsible for maintaining it.
Make sure the firewall rules, are consistent with your company’s security policy.
Keep the firewall updated with the newest patches and upgrades.
Regularly monitor firewall logs.
Perform ongoing audits to compare your security policy to firewall settings and rules.
Subscribe to your vendor’s security bulletins, and read them.
Consider outsourcing your firewall management to a Managed Services Provider (MSP).

A good firewall, used correctly, is arguably the best way to protect your company’s network from viruses, hackers, spyware and intrusions. Finding a good hardware firewall, and following these guidelines will provide your business with the a good share of the protection needed in today’s dangerous Internet climate.

Call 866.575.9512 or Contact Us to learn more.

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Jason Dick,

Northwest Computer Support

Posted By: jason on 2/13/2010
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